Broadcast Journalism, Fifth Edition

469 Pages·2000·8.17 MB·English

by  Andrew Boyd

Broadcast Journalism
Titles in the series
Series editor: F. W. Hodgson
BROADCAST JOURNALISM Andrew Boyd
INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING David Spark
JOURNALISM WORKBOOK Brendan Hennessy and F. W. Hodgson
LAW AND THE MEDIA Tom Crone
MODERN NEWSPAPER PRACTICE F. W. Hodgson
NEWSPAPER LANGUAGE Nicholas Bagnall
PRACTICAL NEWSPAPER REPORTING Geoffrey Harris and David Spark
PRACTICAL PHOTOJOURNALISM Martin Keene
NEW SUBEDITING F. W. Hodgson
WRITING FEATURES ARTICLES Brendan Hennessy
Broadcast Journalism
Techniques of Radio and
Television News
Fifth Edition
Andrew Boyd
Focal Press
OXFORD AUCKLAND BOSTON JOHANNESBURG MELBOURNE NEW DELHI
Focal Press
An imprint of Butterworth-Heinemann
Linacre House, Jordan Hill, Oxford OX2 8DP
225 Wildwood Avenue, Woburn, MA 01801-2041
A division of Reed Educational and Professional Publishing Ltd
A member of the Reed Elsevier plc group
First published 1988
Reprinted 1990
Second edition 1993
Reprinted 1993
Third edition 1994
Reprinted 1995
Fourth edition 1997
Reprinted 1998 (twice), 1999
Fifth edition 2001
© Andrew Boyd 2001
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in
any material form (including photocopying or storing in any medium by
electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some
other use of this publication) without the written permission of the
copyright holder except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the
Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London,
England W1P 0LP. Applications for the copyright holder’s written
permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed
to the publishers
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
Boyd, Andrew, 1956–
Broadcast journalism: techniques of radio and television news/Andrew Boyd – 5th ed.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-240-51571-4 (alk. paper)
1. Broadcast journalism. 2. Broadcast journalism – Great Britain. I. Title.
PN4784.B75 B69 2000
070.1(cid:2)94–dc21 00-064672
ISBN 0 240 51571 4
Composition by Genesis Typesetting, Rochester, Kent
Printed and bound in Great Britain
To Michael and Laura and all my students
– the voices of tomorrow
Our success is measured by the success of our successors.
This Page Intentionally Left Blank
Contents
Foreword xvii
How to use this book xix
List of illustrations xxi
Acknowledgements xxv
Part One Broadcast Journalism 1
NEWS GATHERING 3
1 The best job in town 3
Personal qualities 3
Jobs in broadcasting 4
Radio 5
Television 6
The multi-skilled broadcast journalist 6
Freelancing 7
Industry training 8
Training courses 11
Degree, or not degree ...? 12
Getting a foot in the door 13
A level playing field? 14
2 What is news? 18
Proximity 19
Relevance 19
Immediacy 20
Interest 20
Drama 22
Entertainment 22
Different types of news 23
Checklist 27
Fieldwork 28
viii Contents
3 News sources 29
Reporters 29
Contacts 30
Newsroom diary 31
Files 31
Check calls 31
Emergency services radio 32
Politicians 33
Pressure groups 34
Staged events 35
News releases 36
Syndicated recordings 36
Freelances 38
Tip-offs 39
Hoaxes 39
Wire services and news agencies 40
The network 40
Other news media 43
Shared material 44
Fieldwork 45
4 Getting the story 46
Newsroom conference 46
Copytasting 47
Balance of news 48
Visuals and actuality 48
The brief 49
The angle 50
Chasing the contact 51
Staged news conferences 53
Beating the clock 54
Work to sequence 54
Don’t panic 54
Fieldwork 55
WRITING FOR BROADCAST 56
5 Conversational writing 56
Telling the story 57
Writing for a mass audience 58
No second chance 59
Confusing clauses 60
Inverted sentences 61
Plain English 61
Familiar words 62
Easy listening 62
Accurate English 63
Keep it concrete 64
Contents ix
Make it interesting 65
Contractions 65
Rhythm 66
Fieldwork 67
6 Newswriting 68
The news angle 68
Multi-angled stories 69
Hard news formula 70
The intro 70
Placing key words 71
Feature openers 73
Developing the story 74
Signposting 75
Last line 76
Last words 77
Accuracy 78
Fieldwork 80
7 Broadcast style book 82
Cliche´s 83
Journalese 84
Hyperbole 85
Adjectives 86
Quotations 86
Attribution 86
Contentious statements 87
Immediacy 88
Active 89
Positive 90
Redundancies 90
Repetition 90
Homonyms 91
Singular or plural? 91
Pronouns 91
Punctuation 92
Spelling 92
Abbreviations 92
Figures 93
Proof reading 93
Ambiguity 93
Fieldwork 94
INTERVIEWING 96
8 The interview 96
The interviewer’s skill 96
Different types of interview 97